Marble package



Dec. 4, 1934. M RO ENTHAL 1,983,499

MARBLE PACKAGE Filed Jan. 20, 1934 INVENTOR Mm-rARoamf/kal;

Patented Dec. 4, 1934 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE MARBLE PACKAGE Morris Rosenthal, New York, N. Y.

Application January 20, 1934, Serial No. 707,437

2 Claims. (01. 206-46) My present invention relates generally to packstandpoint of strength and unsuitable in mainaging, and has reference to a new and improved taining the marbles in any given original relapackaged assembly of toy glass marbles. tionship.

The merchandising, in packaged units, of toy I have found, however, that where a group of glass marbles involves unique problems that are toy glass marbles of substantially equal sizes 6 not encountered in the packaging of ordinary are arranged in a predetermined contiguous relae merchandise. The marbles, by their very nationship in a single plane, they may be main.- ture, are perfect spheres presenting highly poltained in such relationship by accommodating ished outer surfaces. To assemble a mass of them within a snug form-fitting enclosure of 1 such bodies, in more or less jumbled relationship, flexible sheet material, where the material is 6 into a bag or the like is, of course, relatively caused to embody sufficient rigidity to mainsimple but fails to meet the important requiretain its predetermined prismatic shape. My inment that the individual marbles be all con vention consists, therefore, briefly, in the asstantly visible. In the purchasing of marbles, sembly of a group of toy marbles with a snug especially by children, the purchaser is largely enclosure of transparent flexible sheet material t a ed by t Coloration d g n l appearin the shape of a prism, preferably a rectanguance of the marbles, and also by the quantity lar parallelepiped, the enclosure being caused to v l l in a v n p k A c r insly, i i embody the requisite rigidity to maintain all highly desirable, if not essential, to display to of the marbles within it constantly in the origthe prospective purchaser as much as possible inal contiguous relationship.

f the Contents of the package in q o I achieve the foregoing objects and advan- The vari us a t p s t meet this qu m nt tages, and such other objects and advantages as a e reflected in th general opment of the may hereinafter appear or be pointed out, in the art. Ordinary cardboard boxes or the like and manner illustratively exemplified in the accomordinary chamois bags are obviously ineffective, panying drawing, whe i except from the pure standpoint of affording ac- Figure 1 is a perspective view of a marble commodation or enclosure for a selected group package constructed in accordance with. my of marbles. Accordingly, cardboard boxes were present invention;

devised and attempted in'which portions of the Figure 2 is a longitudinal cross-section taken 9 walls were perforated or cut out to disclose the substantially along the line 22 of Figure 1;

contents; and bags of loosely woven mesh were Figure 3 is a cross-section taken substantially also employed for a similar purpose. Perhaps along the line 3-3 of Figure l; and.

the greatest degree of visibility of contents was Figure 4 is a plan view of an illustrative blank heretofore afforded by the compartmented type from which the enclosure may be constructed.

of mesh bag described and claimed in United In the illustrated embodiment, a flat blank States Letters Patent No. 1,873,649. of transparent flexible sheet material is cut and It is a general object of my present invention shaped to the general contour of Figure 4, thereto provide a marble package which serves not by providing a front wall section 10, a rear wall only as an inexpensive and feasible enclosure section 11, a bottom wall section 12, a top wall 9 for a group of marbles, but which exposes the section 13, and connectionflaps 14, 15, and 16. contents of the package to the maximum possi- On each of the lateral edges of the sections 10 ble degree. More specifically, it is an object and 11 I provide side wall extensions 17. of my invention to provide a package inwhich In designing the enclosure, it is important that s an enclosure is composed in its entirety of transthe width of the bottom wall section 12 and of 5 parent material. the top wall section 13 be made substantially In achieving my present general objective I equal to the diameter of the marbles to be packhave had to overcome the basic difficulty of aged; whereas the length of each of these secmaintaining each one of the group of marbles tions is made, with as much accuracyas possible, entering into the package in constantly visible to a predetermined multiple of the diameter, de-

" relationship to the others. An enclosure of glass pending upon the arrangement of the marbles or similar rigid material has proven to be unto be accommodated. In the-illustrated form, I feasible because of the expense involved and behave shown the possible arrangement of a plucause of the danger in handling and shipping. rality of marbles in three contiguous parallel Ordinary bags or containers of the cellophane rows, and the length of the sections 12 and 13 no variety have proven to be inadequate from the of Figure 4 are, therefore, made substantially constantly visible to the maximum degree.

equal to three times the diameter of the marbles.

The length of each of the sections 10 and 11 is similarly caused to be of predetermined extent, depending upon the number of marbles to be arranged in each row, the objective being to provide in the finished enclosure a length from top to bottom which is almost exactly the overall length of the group of marbles.

In forming the package, the blank of Figure 4 is folded along the dotted lines, and the adjacent sections 1'? are caused toadhere to each other, either by means of adhesive or otherwise, so

that an enclosure is ultimately formed having a shape conforming to a rectangular parallelepiped. The connection flaps 1e facilitate the assembly and building up of the enclosure, but the connection flaps 15 and 16 are not connected to the rest of the package until after the contents has been inserted. In other Words, the upper end of the package, as viewed in Figure 1, is left open for filling purposes, but it is ultimately sealed by pasting or similarly associating the connection flaps 15 and 16 with the walls of the container, as indicated in Figure 1.

As an illustration of one convenient way of arranging the marbles, I have shown three longitudinal adjacent rows 18, and the enclosure, as hereinbefore described, is designed to snugly accommodate and envelop these marbles, the marbles themselves being designated generally by the reference numeral 19.

When the package is completed, it will be observed that each of the marbles in the group is In other words, all surfaces that are not in contact with adjacent marbles of the group are clearly exposed to view. Where the marbles are of a vari-colored character, as they usually are, the sheen and coloration are thus presented to view in a highly attractive manner.

The material of the enclosure is purposely made of just sufficient rigidity to cause the enclosure to maintain its original prismatic shape. The material may be of any desired or convenient composition, preferably a cellulosic material. If the material is made to embody too great a thickness, its transparency is affected and the general flexibility and attractive nature of the package is impaired; and if the material is too thin, the insufficient rigidity fails to maintain the marbles in the predetermined contiguous relationship. Those skilled in the art can readily determine from the description given how to determine the degree of rigidity which should be imparted to the material of the enclosure, it being understood that the exact composition does not form an essential part of my invention and that it may vary, depending upon the quantity, sizes, and weights of the marbles entering into the package.

While I have illustrated, by Way of example, a substantially rectangular package, it will be understood that the marbles may be arranged in other contiguous relationships, e. g., in a triangle; and it will be understood that the marbles are in each case arranged in a single plane so that the thickness from front to back of the package is always substantially equal to the diameter of one marble. The package is thus, in each case, prismatic, but is not necessarily in the form of a rectangular parallelepiped,

although the latter configuration has proven highly satisfactory.

The package lends itself readily to association with other packages, in flatwise relationship, for purposes of packaging, stacking, shipping, and display. If desired, each package or a predetermined group of packages may be enclosed in an outer shipping container of cardboard or the like. Each package, however, isv complete in itself without any additional outer enclosure and is, in fact, designed to be marketed in the condition herein illustrated.

The package is of highly attractive character, the transparent nature of the enclosure lending an additional sheen and attractiveness to it;- and the marbles themselves, which are the articles being purchased, are efficiently maintained in constantly visible and contiguous relationship. While the material of the enclosure is flexible, the predetermined rigidity of the material always causes the marbles to return to the original relationship, even after the pack? age has been squeezed or roughly handled, this being due in part to the inherent resilience of the material of the enclosure and to an inherent tendency to return to the shape originally imparted to it.

It will be understood that I do not claim, broadly, any transparent packaging of commodities in general, nor do I contend that an enclosure of flexible transparent material is new or is my invention. I do believe, however, that a marble package of the present character is of new and useful character, for the reasons hereinbefore stated.

In general, it will be obvious that changes in the details, herein described and illustrated for the purpose of explaining the nature of my invention, may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as expressed in the appended claims. It is, therefore, intended that these details be interpreted as illustrative, and not in a limiting sense.

Having thus described my invention, and illustrated its use, What I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is- 1. A marble package consisting of a plurality of at least four toy glass marbles of substantial.- ly equal sizes and arranged in contiguous relation in rows in a single plane, and a prismatic enclosure snugly enveloping the marbles and composed of transparent flexible sheet material having suflicient rigidity to cause the enclosure to retain its shape and maintain the marbles in their original relationship, whereby all of the marbles are constantly visible to the maximum degree.

2. A marble package consisting of a plurality of at least four toy glass marbles of substantially equal sizes and arranged in contiguous rows in a single plane, and an enclosure snugly enveloping the marbles, said enclosure comprising a rectangular parallelepiped of transparent flexible sheet material having suiiicient rigidity to cause the enclosure to retain its shape and maintain the marbles in their original relationship, whereby all of the marbles are constantly visible to the maximum degree.

MORRIS ROSENTH-AL.

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